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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

AJ's blog is this weeks blog of the week. Check our his story written for language arts and his glog. This is an excellent example of what can be accomplished in a few short weeks in the digital media class.

3W's blog has a post where they measured how many hands high the students are. Measure how many hands high you are and post it on the blog.

At the Fireplace is the blogs by our friends in Russia. This post has a slideshow of fall centerpieces created by the students. Leave them a nice comment.

Bailey Rd Team 17's blog post shows movies created using 5 pictures and narration. Watch and learn, then leave a comment.

Room 18 Point England School's blog has several short videos. We are going to watch a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. This video was done with puppets and it is amazing!

Friday, September 25, 2009

Mrs. Fell's class spent today learning about estimation. Instead of working out of a math textbook or doing worksheets, they used Johnny Appleseed's birthday as a way to incorporate estimation into class. Here is Mrs. Fell explaining the project

Dance Mat Typing from the excellent BBC Schools website is another free program that helps teach typing. I think it it quite funny to listen to the goat, although I am not sure about what he says all the time since I don't understand all the slang language he uses.

Yesterday during our weekly #Comments4Kids commenting time we had an unusual experience (although I think things like this will become less unusual). While commenting on Kaia's blog our activity was noticed by her father, Jabiz Raisdana. He contacted me and we decided to have him Skype in and talk to my class. Jabiz suggested we make a video or audio for Kaia since she can't read yet. I decided to surprise them with a Voicethread.

After creating the Voicethread I then used the export feature to create a video file that I uploaded to our Youtube channel. The export cost $2.99 and the video was created in a larger Quicktime file and a smaller .mp4 file. The process was quick and easy and I think the quality speaks for itself. Since we created this as a "digital book" I blocked adding comments, but you can add your comments below or on Kaia's blog.

Once again it is time for #Comments4Kids where we have the privilege of reading blog posts from around the world and leaving comments. Today we will be looking at blog posts from Qatar and Iowa. We also will have a chance to leave a comment on one of our own student's blog.

My Digital Media student of the week is Mikayla. Here is a link to her blog. Look at the activities she has done in the last month and leave her a nice comment on one of her posts.

Dear Kaia Kaia's first photo album with commentary. Her father is the awesome teacher, Jabez Raisdan.

From Mr. Goerend's post: "We are beginning a descriptive writing piece. Today, students worked on choosing a topic. We will be focusing on using details and sensory words in their writing to aid the reader in painting a mental picture. We will also work on organization."

Obviously, this means we should read the posts looking for details and sensory words. I am sure the students would like to have comments specifically on that part of their writing.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

We are going to use a web based program called CoverItLive to discuss the tools we have learned so far this year. As you can see, the discussion is taking place in the panel below. To add this to your blog you simply sign up for an account at CoverItLive.com and follow the instructions. The code will be generated for you to add to your blog.

The purpose of this exercise is two-fold. First, I want us to think critically as a group about the uses for the tools we have learned. How can you use these tools in class? How can you use these tools outside of class? Second, I want you to experience discussing something using an online program. We will also discuss how you can use this in and out of class.

The discussion will be moderated so expect some delay between when you enter your text and when it shows up on the page.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;task=viewaltcast&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;altcast_code=7a299f8358" &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;How Can We Apply These Tools in Our Classes?&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Here is a video of Mrs. Brisco, the fourth grade science teacher, talking about how her teaching is changing because of her use of videos from Discovery Education this year. She mentions using it to get the students ready to learn about their topic for the day. The use of a short video to help introduce the topic helps the students to relate better to the information they are exposed to that day.

Here are some pictures and videos of the meeting between Mrs. Baker's ESOL class and Mrs. Whittier's Spanish class. Mrs. Baker teaches in Noel, Missour and Mrs. Whittier is in Fredericksburg Virginia. As you can see, I had to kludge together a stand for the camera. I wish I had thought to bring powered speakers for the laptop, it would have really helped the students' hearing.

Overall, I thought the meeting went extremely well and we plan to continue the conversation later in the year. If you would like your class to skype with one of our 3-8 classes, feel free to contact me and we will set it up!

AudioPal is another site that you can use to record audio for your blog. While it allows for a typed message to be played back, the recording side only allows 60 seconds. This would work great for text to audio, though.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Friday we had our first FCA, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, meeting. FCA is a school club that helps Christian students fellowship with each other. The clubs usually meet before or after school. Here is a link to the FCA website.

Today we are going to add some audio to our blog. Blogger is notorious for being difficult to add audio to it. I ran into this website last year and found it works really well for adding audio to my blog. Here is a link to the page. I would give directions, but it is so simple I don't think I need to.

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Today we will be visiting a new blog, RBS 4th Grade Blog. These fourth graders have written stories that we want to leave encouraging comments on. The comment section is in a different format than we are used to so you will need to pay attention to how to write the comments. We will again be going to Mrs. Guest's blog,Year 5 Adair and Guest, to read and comment on students' stories. Finally we are going to the Room 6 Cyber Kids blog and look at some student created animation

Congratulations to Nathaniel, the first graduate of Mr. C's Keyboarding Class! Nathaniel will be spending the rest of the semester creating a personal blog and exploring media tools. I will link to his blog as soon as he gets it rolling!

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Today we have some great blog posts to comment on! We will start out with a blog that hasn't been part of #comments4kids before, Baily Rd Team 17. This blog is in Mt. Wellington, Auckland, New Zealand. We have been very fortunate to develop some great relationships with schools in New Zealand and Australia and are always ready to make room for more.

Today we will start out class listening to the reader's theater on the Bailey Rd blog. Next we will watch another video by Mr. Lamshed's class. If you haven't watched any of his videos of his students doing a haka you should! Then we have several sites that are worthy of comments.

Because we have many excellent blog posts this week, we will be breaking them up for my students to comment on. Remember to keep your comments positive and meaningful!

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

I am "teaching" keyboarding this year. Fortunately the program we use, Typing Pal Online, allows me to add my own content. As you can see below I have added some historical documents and some literature.

Obviously, I see this as a way to incorporate more into this class than just the skill of keyboarding. We also apply our skills on Wednesday and participate in #Comments4Kids, a twitter meme. What other ways can we make keyboarding more engaging to our students?